The last few decades have spawned a trove of juicy material for cycling journalists. In 2012 and 2013, writing about Lance Armstrong became a cottage industry, while a multitude of doping scandals found their way to the stands of bookstores. On the other end of the spectrum you have memoirs written by cyclists that are often so dry or self-congratulatory that only the most diehard fans can appreciate them.

However, Thomas Dekker’s new book Mijn Gevecht, or My Fight, written with Thijs Zonneveld of the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, has something that one rarely comes across in a cycling memoir — vulnerability.

It’s hard to say how Dekker and Zonneveld came to write this book, and perhaps the title comes more from their “fight” of setting the events to paper. Recently, on the Netherlands’ most popular talk show, De Wereld Draai Door, Dekker sat glumly at a table with Zonneveld while the presenter, a cycling enthusiast, bemoaned that the book had permanently ruined his view of cycling — the beauty, the majesty, the memories of summers watching the Tour all thrown out the window with the reality that Dekker and Zonneveld portray. In particular, readers will be shocked by many passages about sex, drugs, prostitutes, and the hedonistic excessiveness and egotistical drive that it takes to succeed in pro cycling.

When Zonneveld asked the presenter, “Would you rather we didn’t put it in there?” the presenter thought about it and said finally, “Yes, I wish you hadn’t.”

I disagree.

The theme is simple enough — a young innocent boy with big dreams gets sucked into the dark, destructive forces of celebrity. It could be the Dutch Rabobank team just as much as the Dallas Cowboys. Each chapter is a conscious move toward the final stage of self-destruction, and when the end arrives, the reader, too, feels ruined. I have no doubt that the book was structured close to a Hollywood script so that movie offers would follow, at least in Holland.

But what makes Mijn Gevecht stand out from the multitude of cardboard memoirs is Dekker’s voice, which I can only hope is as authentic as it feels. Mijn Gevecht is not a tell-all, but it does indeed feel as if he is telling all, every wart and blemish. The situations he describes are stranger than fiction, such as the first time he meets his hero, Steven de Jongh; they’re assigned a hotel room together, and De Jongh quickly turns on pay-per-view porn. He tosses Dekker a towel, and tells him they’re going to masturbate together, which they do. Welcome to professional cycling.

Dekker tells of sitting in a caravan with his dad, watching his idol Michael Boogerd climb at the Tour de France. Then, a few years later, spending 3500 euros with the same man in Yab Yum, the most notorious brothel in Amsterdam. It’s not the first nor the last time they stay up late before a race, drinking, taking drugs, and having sex with prostitutes. There are also Dekker’s repeated sexual encounters with Ivan Basso’s sister, Elisa, who was banned for four years by the Italian Olympic Committee for trafficking banned substances, and each encounter marks a new descent into his despair. In one particularly poignant section, Dekker is tested by the UCI for drugs, and he’s not sure if they’ll find the EPO from earlier in the week or the GHB he took the night before while clubbing with Max van Heeswijk.

Perhaps what is hardest to read is when Dekker and his manager, Jacques Hanegraaf, have dinner with Dekker’s mother and father. By this point Dekker has spent much of the book repeatedly explaining how his parents are “dead normal,” northern Dutch in every sense of the word — sober, but deeply devoted and loving. The dinner takes place after Dekker’s first year, a successful one, and Hanegraaf tells his’ parents that he wants to take their son’s career to the next level.

The implication hangs heavy over the table and under Zonneveld’s hand, the reader is almost sick with angst, for this is precisely the point and place where the common man — not only the passionate fans of cycling, but the parents who have done everything right — are suddenly infected by the diseased morals of a professional sport. Zonneveld artfully describes the pained looks on Dekker’s parents face, the way they are studying their boy, wanting what is best, knowing and not knowing, like we all know and don’t know.

After Dekker’s fast, hard fall from grace, he determines to make everything right. He throws himself at the Garmin team, flies to Colorado, meets the new generation of clean cyclists, quietly scoffs at their naiveté, goes to a strip bar, stays up all night, gets a text from one of the strippers, spends $300 on taxis going out to the far suburb of Lakewood, and makes it back to team camp just as the youngest cyclists are heading to the breakfast buffet.

And this is when Dekker realizes that he self-sabotages, that his behavior is no longer about cycling or winning or his ego. This behavior is about his own self-destruction. It no longer matters that Jonathan Vaughters takes him to meet the owner of Garmin or that, after a night of having sex with strippers, he’s sitting down to sign a contract for $35,000, almost twelve-times less than he had done with Rabobank. What matters is that he has a profound insight into his own character, into the swirling, black psychology of the driven cyclist, and we, the reader, are right there with him.

Thomas Dekker racing at the 2012 Brabantse Pijl after his two-year sanction. Photo by Kristof Ramon.

Dekker also gives us the stories about blood bags, and the shady hotel meetings with his dealers; how he goes to Germany, to a certain pharmacy, where he can get certain drugs. He talks about the checks, the flights to Spain, his own desperate insecurity, which drives him to need exactly what all the best cyclists have, how he salivated as Lance Armstrong boarded a private jet while he waited in line to board coach. He gives us a perspective of Michael Rasmussen that is undeniably weird and chilling, of Erik Breukink chastising him for not being more focused like Boogerd and de Jongh, of his parents and parents’ friends who supported him from the very beginning and through the darkest, most troubling times.

Surely, Dekker’s former teammates will come out and defend their name against this memoir, which is understandable, but pointless. The NBA is made up of flawed athletes and we love them more for it. I was never much a fan of Boogerd during his racing days, but now, I have to admit, I am. Through Dekker’s stories I saw that Boogerd was a friend, a flawed one, but one that nonetheless navigated a corrupt system and helped his friends navigate it as well.

Like Vaughters, I grew up cycling in Colorado. We had a shared friend, one who died in high school, but when we were young we would go on rides up Mount Evans, near his home. I remember our rides clearly. My friend was full of angst and trouble and during the start he would talk endlessly about his problems, but by the time we reached timber-line that same friend was quiet, serene. Cycling was one of the few things that calmed his soul and mine. And sometimes I think we forget that.

Cycling is made up of people whose souls are so tumultuous that they ride until they can ride no longer. The beauty, for me, has always been the flawed overcoming, about the damaged shining and not about the shining damaging. Thomas Dekker has done something brave here, he has opened sutured wounds with the hope that the rot will dry up. And for that alone we should be thankful.

About the author

Erik Raschke is an American writer living in Amsterdam. His work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Buzzfeed, RIDE, De Volkskrant, and Soigneur.

He didnt do GHB with Boogerd. Max van Heeswijk gave it to him and they both used it in Mallorca. (together with testosteron patches)

Neal Rogers

Thanks for pointing that out. It’s been corrected.

Avila99

Boogerd comes across as a self-centered bully, putting down the lesser gods and enabling the talented youngsters into his destructive behavior. Exactly how he has been described (off the record) by teammates for almost his entire career.

If you believe the things Dekker has said I can’t imagine how you gained respect for Boogerd.

Andy B

Where is this book available?

Push Bike Writer

Beautiful review about something so ugly.

funny

+1. I have no intention of buying the book, but I wish this review was longer. Really nicely written.

zosim

He’s done something brave? No. He is wringing the last few euros out of a career of cheating by selling a book about that cheating. He wasn’t alone by all means but it doesn’t make it right. I’ve seen excess up close that would be at least on a par with Dekker but none of those people are writing about their shameful behaviour and having journos lap it up like they lapped up Lance’s lies.

The slew of tell all bios feels very much like celeb autobiographies; cash generation for the depraved from the idiots

OverIt

Totally agree!! Without even reading it (and I wont… Millar’s book was 1 $tory of guilt over self indulgence to many) , the review has already told me this really isn’t anything to do with cycling and more about an adult who clearly want’s to ca$h in on his story of regret about his choices in life. With age comes insight into both future and past, and if the book were published for free, I’d perhaps think it’s about educating others of the pitfalls of life, but it’s it’s not….

Marc

Couldn’t agree more. Dekker is a very selfish guy, with a huge ego, not to say with narcissistic tendencies. Now he tries to play the role of the victim. He isn’t a victim, he’s a cheat, who nothing but wanted to go all the way with doping, to show off. To the world what a great bike rider he is, to those inside the cycling bubble how professional and tough he is. Btw ‘Mijn Gevecht’ translates as ‘Mein Kampf’ in German.

Wily_Quixote

So you read the book?

zosim

Is there a reason to do so? The review is pretty clear it’s a tale of indulgence and cheating.

Wily_Quixote

The reason for reading the book is so you can comment with authority. What you have managed to do is react to a review of the book, not the book itself.

smaragdus

Only idiots comment books they have never read. Those who do not read books but comment books have opinions about everything based on their ignorance. Those who do not read books but comment books hate truth and truth-seeking because it is contradictory to their vulgar, ready-made opinions.

Trudgin

If he was a rider who had made millions from doping, then fair enough you can get on your high horse but Delmer hasn’t made millions from cycling. He ended up a jobbing rider and his book serves much more as a warning than anything written by the Lance, Millar or Riis.. I’m glad he did, for Steven de Jongh if nothing else ????

jules

there’s 2 types of people.

1 is interested in the dark realities of pro cycling and what makes these freaks of nature tick. and how a lot of us less talented cyclists may share some of the same traits.

the other type is interested in pro cycling as pursuit of the gods – a competition between the (hopefully) pure to see how fast humans can ride a bicycle and who will take that prize.

1 of those perspectives is complete bullshit, the other is real. I’ll take the real one, warts and all. this should be a good read.

Mark Blackwell

agreed, particularly the bit about how we might share the same traits (by which i mean the obsessiveness and single-mindedness, not the speed or power!)

i’m quite sure that he had every encouragement to exaggerate the sex, drugs and rock & roll element, and that is clearly the element which is being talked up currently, but there will be more to this book and i look forward to reading it (even it it does enrich him a little bit)

Marc

Where did you come up with that idea? Have you done research into people interested in cycling that justifies putting them into two boxes? I am interested in pro cycling because I love the dynamics of cycling, the tactics, the team play, using the brain to make split second decisions while under extreme physical pressure. I don’t care about the traits of freaks of nature, I don’t see any human being as a god and I most certainly do not see something as trivial as riding a bike as pursuit of the gods. But I do care about cheats ruining the sport and taking parts of what makes cycling interesting for me away from the sport. And that’s just me. I’m sure there are tons of reasons as for why people are interested in pro cycling and things related to it.

jules

“But I do care about cheats ruining the sport and taking parts of what makes cycling interesting for me away from the sport.”

I totally see where you’re coming from. It’s just that those ‘parts’ were and most likely are not real, they are constructs of our romantic visions of what we think pro cycling should be. None of the riders took those parts away from you, because they never existed in the first place, other than in media-fuelled fantasies of what we dutifully believed was real.

Marc

Of course those parts exist, it’s in the very nature of cycling. I just as much enjoy watching an amateur race with a big field and teams and riders battling each other. In those races you see all those things, you can even see them in junior racing and in under 16’s racing. Great to watch! At pro level doping does take parts of that away.

jules

what were we arguing over again?

Marc

I think the conclusion was that we both love cycling.

Funcas Work

I look forward to reading about him …. as recommended by Paul Kimmage in one word ….. ‘SOLD’ in both senses of the word . Thanks for posting

“He talks about… his own desperate insecurity.” Excellent review of the fuel motivating cyclists, actors, and others who try desperately to heal their insecurity. Of course, it is impossible to cure insecurity with grand tour victories, since it would take monthly victories for five years to feel secure. Today I listened to a fine discussion of Dekker’s text on Telegraph’s Cycling podcast and learned that cyclists can win in two ways: races by cheating and selling books by confessing. However, after reading Travis Tygart’s 2012 report of Lance Armstrong, I am not too interested in learning more about the one-hundred ways a cyclist can both commit adultery and beat a drug test. Vice is boring while virtue is truly admirable. Thanks to Dekker’s honesty, we can learn from another’s mistakes.